Category — Uncategorized

More posting later, but I wanted to share Ichor Falls with you guys.

It’s the best microfiction project I’ve seen since 365tomorrows.

Today’s story, in particular, is awesome.  You won’t look when you shut doors for the next three days.

Last night, I stood in front of the mirror thinking that it was time for a fresh start in my life and that, accordingly, I should make a celebratory life change, like shaving off my beard.

I only seriously considered this for like five seconds, because let’s face it, there are tons of benefits to beard-having, but here are the best 20:

1. Telekinesis.
2. Ultra-manliness.
3. Protection against cold weather.
4. Extra time freed up by lack of daily shaving.
5. Feared by dogs, small children.
6. The telekinesis? Can’t stress that enough.
7. Conceals the twin scars I received at age 10 when I tried to duel my father’s killer, a six-fingered man.
8. Compensates for my weekly viewing of Grey’s Anatomy.
9. Allows me to blend in at cons.
10. Makes me an authority on wilderness survival.
11. Visual cue distinguishing me from my evil twin.
12. Beard telepathically commands me not to shave it off.
13. Great for catching errant chips during depression-driven binge eating sessions.
14. Can stop a 9mm bullet.
15. Vital component of my Hercules, Prince of Power Halloween costume.
16. +2 to Charisma
17. Makes me Totally Rugged.
18. [Make up your own Katie Holmes joke here - post in comments]
19. Beard will be incorporated into official Jefferson Stolarship logo - can’t lose it now.
20. Gnostic prophecy indicates that removing my beard will cause a horde of mutant locusts to rise from the ground and devour the world’s wheat crop. While on fire.

As you can see, I’m basically doing this for your benefit.

The town of Tree Hill is the perfect, all-American town where everything revolves around scholastic basketball, crazy nannies, Pete Wentz and scholastic basketball. Also, scholastic basketball is very important. In that respect, it’s a lot like all small towns in America. Don’t each of us in the rural wilds of the United States live a similar life to those pretty youths that inhabit the Schwannverse? Accordingly, we can draw some parallels between our world and theirs.

Consider Nathan Scott - the favorite son, the lauded hero, the boy who will do anything in order to gain the approval and acceptance of his betters. If it weren’t for Nathan’s ability to score from the paint (because Nathan can raise his arms above his head), you might think I was describing John McCain. Right?

And don’t you think that Tree Hill’s vapid idiot Brooke Davis is a little like McCain’s Veep pick, Sarah Palin? You Betcha. Will this revelation presage the uncovering of a McCain/Palin sex tape? Oh God, I hope not.

Hey, doesn’t basketball star and fellow vapid idiot Lucas Scott love to play basketball, win hearts and minds, and wax moody and idealistic? Does he offer change we can believe in to the Tree Hill Ravens? You see where I’m going with this right? Hint: Barack Obama.

Where does that put everyone else? Well, evil fucking patriarch Dan Scott is George W. Bush, Skillz is Joe Biden, Nanny Carrie is The War On Terror, and Dan’s terminally estranged brother Keith? Well, he’s the economy.

Think about it, won’t you?

NEXT: Why Lorelei Gilmore is like our foreign policy toward China.

Did you know that TacoTuesday.org is already registered? That sucks. I picture it as the Internet’s premier social networking site for people who love Tacos and Tuesdays combined. Which is all just tangential to the topic of this post. But still a good idea.

I love me some Mexican food. Hell, I even love Taco Bell, in that way that you love things that you know aren’t actually any good but are aggressively good at being bad at what they try to do.

Unfortunately, for years and years and years, the only Mexican options in town were Taco Bell and Chi-Chi’s, which, well, that was no good. Back in college, a little place called La Esperanza opened up, and it was pretty heavenly, but it’s gone now. Micro-chain La Tolteca has been here for at least the last few years, and their food started out pretty amazing, but has gone way downhill since they opened up another location about 30 miles north, taking all the quality along with it.

I’m most excited, however, by La Villita, a place that I’ve never gone to. It was pretty convenient to my old address, but it was in a bit of a shady neighborhood.

Somehow in my mind, though, that obvious negative becomes a positive when it comes to food. My experience is that truly satisfying food needs to come from a kitchen with a single, paroled chef and an unquantifiable number of code violations-in-waiting. This is why the crime rate in Clinton Hill, the foodiest place in New York City, is so astronomical (I think this is not actually true, but I could be wrong).

To overcome my recent bout of blog paralysis, I’ve turned the reins over to YOU, the fans. For the next few days, we’ll be celebrating User-Generated Content week here at Conditional Axe. And maybe at Alert Nerd.

What this means is that YOU pick the topics I write about, and the list is, in fact, a doozy. Check it out:

1. Having a beard.
2. Mexican food.
3. Re-cast Grey’s Anatomy with the X-Men. You must use Gambit.
4. How One Tree Hill mirrors the current political landscape of our times?
5. The Presidential debate.

If you have more ideas, email me or hit me up on Twitter.

So, we’ve been being vague and cryptic about it for awhile, but Matt Springer and I are co-writing a comic book.

Neither of us knows how to draw, so we’re looking for an artist.

If you know anybody - or if you’re reading this and you are anybody - give me a yell at the email address in my profile.

If you like what goes on here, you might want to check out:

The Alert Nerd group blog, which I’m the junior member of. Someday, they’ll even put me in that fancy Twitter widget they’ve got.

And of course, I’ll be helping with BCC coverage this weekend for my paymasters at Newsarama.

And, not linked to my red-hot desire for self-promotion at all, check out Fantastic Fangirls. Being neither fantastic nor a fangirl, I have no dog in that particular race, but I do like intelligent, well-written comics ruminating, and FF has got that all taken care of.

I just got done reading A Darkness Forged In Fire, and as solidly okay as it ended up being, it was another fantasy saga with a world-weary outcast hero, his unlikely animal companion (that is symbolic of his repressed inner nature) a love interest that the hero could ‘never be with’ due to some social convention or another, a dwarven friend who has an especially genial relationship with the hero’s cowardly friend, and a barbaric friend who is totally smarter than he first appears to be. That totally doesn’t sound like anything I’ve read before.

Everything about it is a page from a Fantasy/Sci Fi Mad Libs, up to and including the title.

The All-New, All-Different Second Issue of Grok - the web zine for hip, fashionable people who are driven to succeed - is available as we speak for your digital or print perusal.

Within its pages, find a maudlin tale of my youth and other, much more interesting content.

And remember to check out the locative journal that goes along with my ruminating. It has pictures.

For a good 10-12 minutes, the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo tantalizes even the most self-respecting Star Wars fan with the immersion it offers up on a very slickly produced plate.

When I say “immersion,” I don’t mean the kind where you get inside The Secret Apprentice’s head (though the character has far more personality in the few moments he’s allowed than I’d ever reasonably expect), but am really referring to the sense of control I have over the violent proceedings.

For instance, I can take out an AT-ST by picking up the stormtroopers surrounding it and throwing them into it with the Force. I can charge an object with Force lightning and throw it at someone - shocking them. And I can lift a hapless militia member off the ground, impale him with my lightsaber, and then force push him into a cluster of his friends. The number of environmental objects that the player can interact with and the sheer volume of kill methods available make it a feast of options that has prompted me to play the same 10-12 minute demo over and over and over again.

Conventional wisdom (and I’m sure Skip will disagree with me) says that Star Wars games tend to be bad. I mean, we all remember Hoar, right? However, TFU really gives me a sense of being an integral part of the story and somehow manages to be as entertaining to play as the early X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. I’ve seen it described as a mashup of a traditional Star Wars game and the criminally underappreciated Psi-Ops; not only is that accurate, it’s a good thing, too.

I don’t normally touch on video games here, and certainly not to gush about them, but I’m starting to get pretty sold on this being a wise investment of my Xbox dollars. Has anyone else played The Force Unleashed demo? What do you think?